


Hope and Faith and Time

by bethagain



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Abortion, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I made myself cry while writing this so consider yourself warned, Leia has to make some decisions, and a touch of TFA backstory, between movies and post-ROTJ, original character death, warnings for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 16:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11444751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethagain/pseuds/bethagain
Summary: Pregnancy in wartime is a question without a simple answer.





	Hope and Faith and Time

**Author's Note:**

> This story hit me over the head while I was looking for a song for a fanvid about Leia. I checked out Vienna Teng's Shasta (Carrie's Song) because, obviously, without knowing what it was about. Once I read the lyrics... the rest of my evening disappeared into this story.
> 
> p.s. Yes, this is a story about abortion. If you're looking for a moral, though, you can stop--there isn't one. Except, I suppose, that I'm glad Leia was allowed to make her choice.

The floor was shaking.

The newest Rebel base was just a few prefab buildings covered in hasty camouflage, advance crews living in makeshift barracks while they surveyed the land. They hadn’t even broken ground yet, and now the ground was breaking up beneath Leia’s feet.

The sky was dark with Imperial bombers. The world around her was alight with fire.

Leia, standing in the middle of it all, laid a hand over her belly and closed her eyes.

 

Most of them made it out, a harrowing gantlet past screaming torpedos and blazing cannon blasts. Leia watched from the controls of her A-wing as the last transport ship pitched sideways to dodge a laser shot--and then flipped end-over-end when a TIE clipped its corner through the blue flicker of failing shields. 

There was a flash of flame before the transport broke apart.

It left bright spots in Leia’s vision. They danced over the swirling lights of hyperspace as her ship glided into its course toward the emergency rendezvous, toward this week’s coordinates in lonely, open space where they could regroup after disaster. 

In the quiet of the cockpit, Leia let all the lights blur together into tears.

A woman’s cycle can get irregular in wartime. Missed meals, sleepless nights, days of worry: the body can’t keep up. But there was something different this time, a tiredness, a tenderness in her breasts, that little touch of nausea. She’d woken up, the morning of this fire-filled day, and _known._

 

_Two weeks later_

The blaster was getting warm in Leia’s hand. Firefights didn’t usually last this long, but her team was pinned down, the faceless wall of an Imperial munitions factory at their backs. A hastily built barrier of shipping crates was the only thing between them and the heavily armed security patrol.

Keeping up a steady fire was the only thing keeping them alive.

 _Where are you,_ Leia thought, as her blaster’s power indicator flickered to red. The woman beside her swore, fell back, and Leia could smell the burning wound without needing to see. She reached down, eyes still on the battle, and felt Della’s hand clasp hers.

 _Where_ are _you?_

Luke’s Rogue Squadron was there finally, sudden and skilled as always, sparks in the sky that turned swiftly to the shape of starfighters, ships drawing fire from the watchtowers, taking out the security patrol, holding formation and standing guard while an armed shuttle dropped down and Leia’s crew ran for its ramp.

It usually felt like a miracle. 

This time it just felt _late._

Luke’s voice, usually loud with the adrenaline of a fight, was quiet over the comm as they left the still, broken figure of Leia’s friend behind on the duracrete terrain.

 

_Later that day_

“We can’t,” General Rieekan said.

The members of Command were assembled in the strategy room on board the _Resistance._ The green glow from wall-sized screens overpowered the ship’s artificial daylight. 

The screen in front of Leia showed an array of shapes: The Seventh Division of the Imperial Fleet, led by the Star Destroyer _Irascible_ ; the Alliance fleet outlined beside it for comparison. All their starfighters, transports, medical ships, even their largest battleships were dwarfed in size and number by that one Imperial division. 

The Imperial division that was, right now, on a course for the Nisalian system, where a tiny, dark planet housed a shipyard friendly to the Alliance.

They’d relied on the kindness, the skill, the fearlessness of the Nisal engineers more than once.

The Alliance paid for their services. No promises were made.

“We can’t,” the man beside Leia agreed. Captain Fens, his name was, Zane Fens. His wife Abi was away on a mission to infiltrate the Empire’s central engineering division, far away on Kantar IV. She’d been gone for… Leia thought back, past battles, victories, losses, memories atop memories… eight standard months. Parsecs away in the Deep Core, undercover, on radio silence. 

Leia stared at the green shapes, a dull ache behind her eyes. The Empire would blast the Nisalians into dust. The Alliance could try to help, they should try to help… But the fleet was already spread so thin.

Even if they sent everyone they could spare, it would be a massacre. 

“We can’t,” she agreed. She kept her voice steady, her face calm.

She made it back to her quarters before the nausea caught up with her.

As she knelt over the wastebin, bringing up the food she’d wolfed down after landing back on board, she thought: _I can’t._

One of her braids was coming undone. A few strands of her waist-length hair caught at the corner of her mouth. She pushed them back, vomit smearing across her cheek as she did so, then gave up as she retched again, watching her hair fall into the puddle at the bottom of the bin.

_Not now._

_Not into this world, this time, this fight._

_I can’t._

 

She never did tell Han. The _Resistance_ had a well-outfitted medical bay, and it was a simple matter, anyway. The medical officer, an older woman with greying hair, didn’t even ask any questions.

She gave Leia the packet of pills, reaching out her other hand to support Leia’s as she placed the tiny, foil-wrapped answer gently into her palm.

 

_Sixteen months later_

The fight wasn’t over, wouldn’t be over for a while, even if half the Galaxy was throwing galas to mark the Emperor’s death. 

But they’d gained ground, held it, were pushing for more.

These days, when Leia closed her eyes, the fireworks seared against her vision were those of celebrations.

Han crowded onto the examining table beside her, hip against hers and an arm around her shoulders. He shared a grin with the med tech who was floating a sensor over Leia’s belly.

“It’s a boy, isn’t it?”

The tech glanced at her. “You sure you want to know?”

She settled back against Han’s arm, feeling safe, feeling hopeful. “We want to know.”

Han whooped as the tech nodded his way. “Got it in one, Solo.”

Later, as they sat together in Leia’s quarters, hyperspace glimmering through the tiny porthole, they talked about old friends, history, family, and heroes. 

Han didn’t care about names, not really. He didn’t know his family. And his heroes were right here around him.

They’d name him after her father, then, to save his name, keep his memory alive. But the name Bail came with the story of Alderaan, and that was a heavy burden for such a little soul to carry. 

They’d give him a second name, an everyday name, with an easier story to tell (not that any stories, these days, were easy).

“Ben,” Han repeated after her, and Leia, who by now knew all about a deal in a cantina on Tatooine, a skeptical smuggler, and how a Jedi hero had become an old man and then a hero again, watched with delight as the look of wonder crossed Han’s face. His hand hovered over her belly, as if he were afraid to touch.

“Hello little Ben,” she said, speaking to their future, pressing her hand over his.


End file.
